Ranked choice voting: What is it?
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — One thing every voter in Missouri will be able to vote on is Amendment 7. If it passes, ranked choice voting would be banned in the state.
Since Tuesday, Nexstar TV stations in the state have talked to a supporter and an opponent of the idea.
"Right now, you're stuck voting for just one person," Preserve Local Elections Secretary Rachel MacNair said in an interview with FOX4.
MacNair says if local cities in the state wanted ranked choice voting, and they approve of it, voters would get to rank who their, first, second, third, and fourth choices are for a particular race.
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"And if your first choice doesn't make it, your vote moves to your second choice. You still have only one vote, but it moves to your second choice, so your vote is not wasted," she continued.
MacNair, a ranked choice voting supporter, has signs in her yard telling Missourians to 'Vote No' on Amendment 7.
Ranked choice voting is not currently used in the state, but if it passes, it would stop any governments in the state from potentially using it in the future. One person who thinks Missourians should 'Vote Yes' on Amendment 7 is current Lafayette County State Senator Denny Hoskins.
"Take for example, in my race in the Republican Primary for Secretary of State, we had eight candidates, and so voters would be required to rank each one of those candidates from one to eight," he said in an interview with our Joplin affiliate KODE on Tuesday of this week. "It's a very confusing, convoluted process. Ranked choice voting has not worked in other states that have done that. In fact, I believe there's ten states now that have banned ranked choice voting. We want to make sure that ranked choice voting does not take place here in the state of Missouri."
MacNair disagrees with Hoskins on the requirement part.
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"If anybody wants to rank only one person, they can do that," she said. "If they want to rank two even though they could do four or five, they could do just two. Nobody is obligated to rank more than they want."
Amendment 7 would also add language to the state constitution only allowing U.S. citizens to vote in elections in the state. Non-U.S. citizens can't legally vote in the state already. That's the part of the amendment MacNair believes will try to trick voters into saying yes on this issue. Hoskins won his Republican Primary for Secretary of State by 7%, but he still got only 24% of the total vote with seven other candidates.
